Chaos Bites Part 35

Ruthie took a sip of tea and didn't answer.

"Right?" I pressed.

She set down her cup then stared out the window. Her charges were kicking a soccer ball-back and forth, back and forth.

"Ruthie?" I tried again. "Why am I here?"

"Trouble's comin'," she said.

"If I had a nickel for every time I've heard that," I began.

"You're gonna have to live with the choices you make; you're gonna have to make them on your own," she murmured. "And soon."

"When?" I asked. "What?"

I didn't like making decisions that saved or ended people's lives, that could, in the long run, mean the beginning of the end of the world. Especially since half the time I had no clue what I was doing.

"You're right," she said. "You've come for a reason. There's somethin' I've gotta tell you."

Fear trickled over me, leaving behind icy sweat and a thick nasty taste at the base of my throat. "Jimmy-" I began, then-"Luther."

I started to get dizzy, realized I wasn't breathing, then did with a huge, loud gasp on the word, "Faith!"

Ruthie snapped her fingers in front of my face. "Focus, Lizbeth!"

It wasn't easy, but I got it together. "I'm okay."

"If the Nephilim believe you have a weakness"-she narrowed her eyes-"or three. They'll use it."

I knew that. Had been warned over and over not to care too much. But I couldn't help it.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Everything," Ruthie said, then touched the center of my forehead with her thumb.

My eyes crossed, I blinked, and in that instant I was somewhere else.

A dark, deserted street-sidewalk broken, a few streetlights, too. The air thick and hot; it still smelled of rain.

"New Orleans," I whispered. I'd know that scent anywhere.

Rows of buildings seemed to hunch with age. Ahead I could just make out the towering spires of a church, and across the way- "Saint Louis Number One."

The oldest existing cemetery in New Orleans, and a very dangerous place to visit after dark. Good thing I wasn't really there.

St. Louis Cemetery Number One had been built on what had once been Storyville, the only legal red-light district in the country. The place was a h.e.l.luva lot quieter now. Although as I watched, lightning began to sizzle and thunder to rumble. Both seemed to be focused directly above the cemetery. A low, deep voice lifted from beyond the white brick walls-a voice I recognized.

"Mait." I started for the gate.

He did say he'd been reading the book.

Was that Ruthie's voice, or my own? And what did it mean?

I inched closer. The gate was closed, locked, but that didn't matter. I wished to be within and I was.

I'd been here before, but in the daylight and on a tour. The place had been spooky then, now it was downright unearthly.

Since New Orleans had been built below sea level, they buried people aboveground; otherwise their coffins popped up and floated away during the rainy season.

Interestingly enough, the cemeteries were the most desegregated places in the city. In death, folks were separated by religion, not race, and every single one was treated the same.

After a year and a day spent on a shelf inside a brick monument, quaintly called an oven, their remains were dumped into a well with whoever had been there before to make room for the next occupant. Though St. Louis Number One spanned only a single block, it was the resting place of more than a hundred thousand souls.

White monuments shown luminescent in the moonlight. Shadows danced across the rock-strewn ground. Here the outline of an angel perched atop a tall thin crypt. There the ghostly form of the Virgin cast by a statue surrounded with sunburned gra.s.s.

I followed the sound of Mait's voice. He wasn't trying to be quiet. No one was really here but him.

"Arise!" he shouted.

Uh-oh.

The figure of a man darted toward the gate. At first I thought it was Mait; then I heard the sosye speak again nearby. "Not all has been lost."

Two more silhouettes sprinted between the crypts. The gate rattled. I peeked around a statue. Mait clapped once, and something creaked-very Addams Family-followed by the rhythm of retreating footsteps. A quick glance toward Rampart Street revealed the gate now stood wide open as half a dozen figures scooted through then scattered in different directions.

d.a.m.n.

He had been reading the book.

I watched, both repelled and enthralled, as Mait set his hand against another glistening white tomb and murmured, "Arise."

I waited for the door to open, or perhaps for the stone to fall away. Maybe smoke would trail out of a crack and form the shape of the undead, becoming more and more solid until the newly risen spirit could cause the footsteps I'd so recently heard as it ran away to Samyaza-only-knew where.

Instead, another human-sized shadow flitted between the tombs and out through the gate. Now you don't see him, abracadabra, now you do.

The heated, overripe night suddenly felt far too cool. No matter what we did, we couldn't seem to get ahead in our battle against the forces of darkness. I knew everything was inevitable, but sheesh, couldn't we just once catch a break?

Burn the book to keep them from raising another army of the undead only to discover that the keeper of the book had memorized the freaking thing.

The next instant I sat across from Ruthie at the kitchen table. Her tea was gone; mine was cold.

"What the h.e.l.l?" I muttered. "All he has to say is 'arise' and they do? What kind of spell is that?"

Her dark eyes contemplated me for several seconds, as if she was trying to decide if she should tell me the truth or not. Then she sighed.

"The spell in the Book of Samyaza doesn't raise the dead, child, it creates someone who can."

CHAPTER 32.

Me of the pithy comebacks stared at Ruthie and said, "Huh?"

"Mait has the ability to raise the dead."

The light in my brain finally flickered. "Armageddon here we come," I muttered. "What the h.e.l.l else was in that book?"

"We're never gonna know."

Maybe I was glad Jimmy had burned it. But what about Ruthie?

"Did you tell him to burn the book?" I asked.

"Me?" She seemed genuinely surprised. I didn't buy it.

"Did you?"

Ruthie shook her head. "Didn't know you'd found the thing until it went up in flames."

"You and me both," I muttered. "Just once I'd like to find out something before it's too late to stop it."

"Who said it's too late?"

I tapped my temple. "I just saw the guy raising zombies-"

"Not zombies," Ruthie corrected. "People."

"People," I repeated.

"You saw what he did. Were the beings that Mait raised shambling, moaning, dropping body parts across the ground as they ran?"

"No," I said slowly. That they were running at all was a pretty neat trick considering. "They moved normally. Silently. I didn't see them well enough to know if they had rotten ears and fingers, but-"

"They didn't," she said. "They won't need to eat human flesh to survive, either."

"Always a plus," I murmured. "What will they eat?"

"Same thing they always did. Mait raised them to life."

"He can raise anything?"

"Anything with human blood."

"Nephilim, too, then?"

"In theory," Ruthie said.

"I bet he makes that theory into a fact real soon."

The Grigori wouldn't even need to escape Tartarus to replenish their Nephilim army. All they'd have to do was raise their cohorts back to life and everything the federation had done would be erased; all those who'd died for this cause would have died in vain.

"Not on my watch," I muttered. I was so going to kill this guy. But first he and I would have a chat.

Ruthie stared at me, waiting to hear more questions, or perhaps just my plan. I didn't have one, but I would. I always did. I liked plans.

"Once these beings are raised they're exactly as they were before they died?" I asked. Maybe Sawyer wasn't gone forever after all. Which, considering what we were up against, was such good news.

"I doubt anyone's been dead would come back exactly the same."

"But you just said-"

"Physically yes. Mentally?" Ruthie shrugged. "They were dead. No tellin' how that affected their minds."

"Terrific," I muttered. "We've got crazy un-zombies running around New Orleans."

"Not yet."

"I saw them, Ruthie."

"You saw the future."

I frowned. "How far in the future?"

Ruthie's sober dark eyes met mine. "Mait's been cooped up in that church for a while. Right now I'd say he's gettin' lap dances on Bourbon."

I stood so fast my chair skidded back and nearly fell over.

"Calm down. Sit down," she ordered.

"If he's on Bourbon, I could grab him tonight. No one would even notice."

Not that it would matter if they did. It would just be easier if they didn't.

"It's August in New Orleans, Lizbeth, not Mardi Gras. Someone would notice."

She was right. I sat down. "I can't afford to let him slip away."

"You know where he'll be."

"I'll stake out the cemetery," I murmured.

"I would."